Hello. I’m new to Audacity and a bit overwhelmed with all the options. I actually have one simple function I need to perform. I have a number large mp3 files, an hour in length or so. These are live concert recordings. They are all one large file. I want to put Splits (or Chapter Stops) between the songs in this file. Essentially this will make separate mp3s for each song. Help! (Thanks.)
You can automate this using Export Multiple and Labels.
Go through and set labels at each of the break points. Don’t forget a label at the very beginning. Then File > Export Multiple and Audacity will create separate MP3 files, one after each label.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/splitting_a_recording_into_separate_tracks.html
However I wouldn’t use Audacity for this. Audacity doesn’t actually edit MP3. It converts MP3 to a high quality internal format and edits that. Then you’re done, it creates all new MP3 files and when it does, the MP3 sound compression damage doubles. So you will never be able to go back to the same tiny MP3 files that you had before – the new files are not your big file simply divided in fractions.
You might be able to use a stand-alone MP3 editor rather than a production editor. We have a ready one for Windows, MP3SPLT
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp3splt/
…but not for Macs. You might be able to use it with the X11 X-Window system under 0S-X. We had software at work that ran that way.
Koz